Education Under Attack in Thailand

Education Under Attack in Thailand, HRW's Bede Sheppard explains how students, schools and teachers are caught between the rebels and the government in southern Thailand.

HRW's Bede Sheppard explains how students, schools and teachers are caught between the rebels and the government in southern Thailand. Photography by David Hogsholt/Reportage by Getty Images and Human Rights Watch.

Separatist attacks on teachers and schools and the government's use of schools as military bases are greatly harming the education of children in Thailand's southern border provinces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The insurgents have also used Islamic schools to indoctrinate and recruit students into their movement. At the same time, Thai army and paramilitary forces are disrupting education and placing students at unnecessary risk of insurgent attack by occupying schools for long periods as bases for their counterinsurgency operations.

"The insurgents' practice of shooting teachers and burning schools shows incredible depravity," said Bede Sheppard, senior Asia researcher for children's rights at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "It's cruel and immoral and robs children of their education and their future."